ALGORITHM FOR THE SIMULATION OF PARTICLE SUSPENSIONS WITH INERTIA EFFECTS

We present a numerical method that can deal efficiently with large num bers of particles suspended in incompressible fluids. Our approach is based on a finite-differencing multigrid Navier-Stokes solver. The int eractions between particles and fluid at the no-slip interfaces are ta ken into account by numerically integrating the stress tensor over the particle surface using an analytical expansion for the fluid fields. We demonstrate the validity of our approach by performing numerical si mulations of several simple systems in two spatial dimensions and comp are our results with experimental, numerical, and theoretical result. Our simulation method quantitatively reproduces known experimental and numerical results while remaining numerically fast enough to provide dynamical simulations of particle-liquid systems with several thousand particles in the regime of particle Reynolds numbers less than about 50.